1. Field of the Invention
The present general inventive concept relates to an array type multi-pass inkjet printer and an operating method thereof. More particularly, the present general inventive concept relates to an array type multi-pass inkjet printer capable of enhancing a resolution and compensating a defective image occurring due to defective nozzles and, and an operating method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
An inkjet printer is a printer, which carries out a printing operation in a manner of ejecting ink droplets onto a printing medium, such as a paper or a film, through nozzles according to a control signal thereof.
The inkjet printer can be classified into a shuttle type inkjet printer and an array type inkjet printer according to a method of driving a head for printing.
The shuttle type inkjet printer has a head in which a plurality of nozzles are arranged in a horizontal scan direction. The head prints data in a line while moving in a horizontal scan direction perpendicular to a feeding direction of the printing medium and data in different lines while moving in a vertical scan direction parallel to the feeding direction.
The array type inkjet printer has a head in which a plurality of nozzles are arranged along the horizontal scan direction to correspond to a width of the printing medium and along the vertical scan direction to print data by a unit of lines in the vertical scan direction. The head only moves in the vertical scan direction.
In such a head of the array type inkjet printer are formed several thousands of nozzles according to a resolution or a design. If 1,200 nozzles are formed in a line, a head of, for example, a color printer has 4,800(=1200*4) nozzles since it supports four colors of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black.
If there are dead (defective) nozzles in a portion of the head of the array type inkjet printer as described above, the defective nozzles cannot eject ink droplets on corresponding portions of an image, thereby outputting a defective image. In this case, however, there is no method to compensate the output defective image other than by replacing the head with a new one.
Also, in the array type inkjet printer, a resolution is physically determined according to the number of the nozzles formed in the head. However, there is no method proposed to improve more than the resolution physically determined as described above as yet.